ESP32-S3 TFT Reverse - display dead

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briandbrady
 
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ESP32-S3 TFT Reverse - display dead

Post by briandbrady »

My ESP32-S3 TFT Reverse screen is not working. I handed it to a student to use for a project and it was working at the time. I had just flashed it with CPy 8.03. He was working on some code to display sensor values and trying to get his layout working. He had some code issues at first but I made suggestions. His code was not displaying anything on the screen - ever. He sent me what he had and I put it on an ESP32-S2 TFT and everything displayed fine. He came to my office earlier today and we could not get the S3 to display anything.

I just bought it about two weeks ago. Any hints as to what might be the problem? Did he or I somehow smoke the screen? It will run code and print to the REPL, just nothing at all on the screen. I already followed the instructions to reset it to factory settings... nothing on the screen, but LEDs lit and flashed as expected. I just put CPy 8.04 on it and tried a simple script to display text. Still nothing on the screen. No errors. The LED and NeoPixel work fine and I can print to the REPL. I added code to set the TFT_I2C_POWER to True, but no love.

I am just out of luck and need to get back on the waitlist for a new unit?

Brian

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Re: ESP32-S3 TFT Reverse - display dead

Post by adafruit_support_carter »

Double check and make sure there is not ESP32-S2 vs S3 confusion happening. There are several ESP32 boards with confusingly similar names.

Are you still able to get the BOOT folder to show up when double pressing reset?

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briandbrady
 
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Re: ESP32-S3 TFT Reverse - display dead

Post by briandbrady »

This is the UF2 that I flashed to it. Just did it again in case I accidentally dragged the wrong one yesterday.

adafruit-circuitpython-adafruit_feather_esp32s3_reverse_tft-en_US-8.0.4.uf2

Still dead. Everything else seems to work fine, just not the screen. If the S2 UF2 had been flashed to it would that have caused any physical harm?

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Re: ESP32-S3 TFT Reverse - display dead

Post by adafruit_support_carter »

Should generally be OK with a wrong UF2. It just wouldn't work. But should still be able to get back into bootloader mode and then copy correct UF2.

It sounds like you are still able to get the BOOT folder to show up. Look in that folder for a file named INFO_UF2.TXT and paste the contents of that file here.

Also - are you seeing anything on the TFT when bootloader mode is active?

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briandbrady
 
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Re: ESP32-S3 TFT Reverse - display dead

Post by briandbrady »

TinyUF2 Bootloader 0.12.3 - tinyusb (0.12.0-203-ga4cfd1c69)
Model: Adafruit Feather ESP32-S3 Reverse TFT
Board-ID: ESP32S3-FeatherRevTFT-revC
Date: Feb 2 2023

Nothing on the screen, ever.

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Re: ESP32-S3 TFT Reverse - display dead

Post by adafruit_support_carter »

Thanks. That's all generally looking as expected. Just no display. :(

If you post some photos of both sides of the Feather, we can take a look for anything obvious that might be wrong hardware-wise.

Any other possible correlations to anything? Like what was the last thing done before it went from working to not working?

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briandbrady
 
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Re: ESP32-S3 TFT Reverse - display dead

Post by briandbrady »

IMG_2815.jpeg
IMG_2815.jpeg (122.51 KiB) Viewed 83 times
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IMG_2816.jpeg (120.36 KiB) Viewed 83 times
No correlations that I can think of. I flashed to the latest CPy for the student and gave him some sample display code I had on a Clue so he would have something to start with. He took it back to the lab with him used the code as a "template" to write some starter code for his project. He emailed me that evening that he kept getting errors. Mostly syntax errors that I helped him work through via email. He never ended up seeing anything on the display. So I'm not sure when the issue actually started. The screen worked when I handed it to him.

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mpvano
 
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Re: ESP32-S3 TFT Reverse - display dead

Post by mpvano »

Hi all!

I'm having similar problems here.

I have a new(ish) ESP32-S3 rev board that I'm attempting to move some simple CircuitPython code to. I've spent hours trying to get it to display ANYTHING in version 8.04. Sometimes the display backlight is on, other times it's off. That's all the activity I see on the display. I've reviewed most of the similar threads here and tried all the fixes and test programs with similar results.

The board seems to work fine with the startup diagnostic code and the display works fine in the boot loader. The serial terminal works fine while the display is not working.

Here's the catch: I also have the identical board in the NON Reverse version, and everything works perfectly when I switch to it!

I require the Reverse version to deal with some mechanical constraints here, but I can work around them temporarily while I finish working on my code.

I wonder if I should pursue this as a hardware problem and request a replacement or just wait for a software fix?

thanks again in advance....

Mario Vano

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Re: ESP32-S3 TFT Reverse - display dead

Post by adafruit_support_carter »

@mpvano Please start a new thread for your issue.

@briandbrady It looks like we didn't try the factory reset UF2 yet. Worth trying to at least see if that can show anything on the TFT. The UF2 is here:
https://learn.adafruit.com/esp32-s3-rev ... f2-3107942

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mpvano
 
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Re: ESP32-S3 TFT Reverse - display dead

Post by mpvano »

Thanks for the reply...

I just started all over and redownloaded the CircuitPython 8.05 uf2 and now things work properly.

All I can think is that perhaps I'd been trying to use the non-reverse version of the uf2 before - At this point I have too many different versions floating around the same folder.

I think I'll hold off with the new thread unless I get off in the weeds again.

thanks again.

M

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